FALL RIVER — Kerryann Tracy appears at home in her high school English classroom, sometimes sitting on the front of her desk, rather than behind it. A little closer to her students.

Tracy, who teaches at B.M.C. Durfee High School, this year is one of 22 Advanced Placement teachers from across Massachusetts to receive Mass Insight Education’s Partners in Excellence Teacher Award given for outstanding contributions to student achievement.

That award recognizes Tracy for her efforts in helping expand Advanced Placement course offerings at Durfee, and for advising educators at other high schools in the SouthCoast as they look to expand their own programs.

Tracy teaches in room 353, the same room in which she had taken history class as a Durfee student.

“A.P. is in my blood,” Tracy said during a recent visit to her classroom, one day after school.

She discussed the expansion of A.P. class offerings at Durfee. Whether in math, history, science or English, A.P. classes were once considered the domain of elite and academically gifted high school students.

But now at Durfee, more students are trying them out. And more students are taking A.P. exams, and passing. In five years, enrollment in A.P. classes has more than doubled. In 2009, 165 students were enrolled in A.P. classes. This past school year, there were 378.

“The face of an A.P. student has changed,” Tracy said. “It’s a wonderful community of students. Students of all levels are trying to take an A.P. course.”

Tracy is not content to let her students coast through Durfee.

“Some students want to coast their senior year,” Tracy said. “If you have the ability, you should be challenging yourself.

“I think Durfee has a wonderful selection of A.P. courses,” she said.

Tracy doesn’t appear surprised to learn that students are passing their A.P. exams. It means more Durfee students are mastering college level work while still at high school.

“All students can do extensive essays,” she said.

That is evidenced during occasions when Tracy encounters her former students.

“My kids come back to me and tell me ‘your class was harder than what I took in college,’” she said.

Tracy doesn’t tell her students that “practice makes perfect,” as says the common adage. Instead she tells them, “Practice makes permanent.”

“If you practice your skills it becomes so much easier,” she explained. It makes skills such as writing that at the outset many students find difficult, much easier as they become routine.”

Tracy doesn’t just teach to A.P. students. She teaches other levels of English, including inclusion classes, which have a mix of both regular education students and special needs students.

The approach is a little different in each classroom, but the end result is the same. If a work by William Shakespeare is being taught, all students will learn it.

“The goal is, can they teach it back to me?” Tracy said, adding “There are different ways to access the text.”

Tracy’s point is illustrated by the different student projects seen sitting along the walls of her classroom. Those include trading cards of characters from “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte, a “Hamlet” playbill, another display showing MacBeth’s hands outlined in blood, as well as scrapbooks and other projects based on literary works.

“Sometimes the best moments are with students you know were struggling, and then they get a qualifying score on the exam,” Tracy said, adding that she enjoys watching students develop confidence in their abilities.

“I really love the population of students we have. My students are very important to me. I like to give them meaningful feedback,” she said.

Tracy’s work at Durfee doesn’t end each day when the dismissal bell rings. She is also the lead coordinator of its after school Homebound program, which targets students who have been absent from school long-term, whether due to health situations, serving suspensions or for other reasons.

Homebound was recently highlighted by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education as an example of a successful alternative education and intervention model.

Tracy also mentors new teachers at Durfee and in the district.

The Partners in Excellence award was given during an event held at the Bostom Museum of Science on April 17.

Durfee principal Paul Marshall noted the it is the second year in a row that a teacher at the school has been the recipient of the award. Last year, a fellow A.P. English teacher, Paul Saurette, also received it.

Although she seems to be a natural fit in the classroom, teaching wasn’t Tracy’s first career choice.

“I didn’t think I’d ever become a teacher. I was a criminal justice major,” Tracy said. “I got my master’s in criminal justice. My grandmother was an English teacher.

“I should be doing this,” Tracy said. “You belong in a profession if you love it.”